TidBITS#12/09-Jul-90
====================
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Topics:
Bah, Windows Again
Disinfectant 2.0
Claris Absorbed
Electronic Frontiersmen
New Apple Magic
The fx Terminator
Reviews/09-Jul-90
Bah, Windows Again
------------------
We'd hoped not to have to address this topic again, but it refuses
to die on Usenet or in the trade press. Essentially, the argument
is whether or not the introduction of Windows 3.0 will make a
PC-clone just as good as a Mac, thus putting Apple out of business
because the Mac would no longer be worth the money.
There are two separate issues here, first, if Windows 3.0 is as
good as the Mac interface, and second, if Apple can and should
compete with PC-clones on price. Our impression of Windows after
installing it (and having it hang because of a conflict with a
batch file), is that it is a step forward for user PC-clones user
interfaces. It concatenates the functionality of a number of
previously separate (and confusing) memory management tools into
one package. And finally, it provides some form of (we aren't
getting into the argument over the definition of "true" here)
multitasking. However, Windows is just an interface, just as the
Finder is. You cannot initialize a hard disk from the Finder,
similarly, you cannot perform many low level functions in Windows.
The difference is that with the Mac, you get other programs with
decent interfaces for low level functions. On the PC, you get DOS
or at the ultimate worst, DEBUG (I'm thinking specifically of
formatting a new hard disk on an XT, which required use of DEBUG).
Windows users still must deal with the infamous CONFIG.SYS and
AUTOEXEC.BAT files that have confounded many a DOS user. Windows
makes using applications written for Windows easier than using
non-Windows applications-it does not make a PC-clone into a Mac.
If you have a powerful PC-clone and aren't going to buy a Mac
soon, get Windows. Issue one done.
Issue two is stickier. Apple has promised a low-cost Mac and such
a Mac would be good for Apple's image if not its coffers. Apple
would appear less elitist, which never hurts. The world should
have low-cost Macs. However, it doesn't necessarily make sense for
Apple to make them. Apple's prices are very comparable to IBM's
and Compaq's, the pre-eminent PC manufacturers, because all three
companies are similar. They all do research and development and
push the frontier of technology (no quibbling about IBM for the
moment). However, you can buy a PC-clone that may even be better
than an IBM PC machine because many other companies concentrate
all their efforts on bringing out well-made, inexpensive machines.
Apple is not a low-end marketing company, and it is very difficult
to push both the technology forward and the prices down. The only
company that achieves this as far as I know is Hewlett-Packard
with their printer line.
Two possibilities suggest themselves to us. First, Apple could (as
we've proposed before) license the old ROMs in the Plus and SE to
certain third party manufacturers. Apple would then retain control
over the high end and would still reap the benefit of the
increased market share of Mac-compatible machines. To keep quality
high, Apple could only license the ROMs to companies who have
proven manufacturing and support abilities, like Dell Computer
Corporation. Second, Apple could itself create a spin-off company,
much as it did Claris in 1987, that would completely handle the
low-end machines. That way Apple could keep fairly tight control
and would even make money by owning the majority share of the new
corporation. That would also leave Apple with the option of re-
absorbing the company at some future date if necessary. Issue two
done.
Information from:
Adam C. Engst & Tonya Byard -- TidBITS editors
Steve Martin -- steve@uswmrg2.UUCP
Matthew Mashyna -- mm5l+@andrew.cmu.edu
Matthew T. Russotto -- russotto@eng.umd.edu
Benson M. Wu -- bmwu@athena.mit.edu
Related articles:
Umpteen zillion in all the major trade magazines and Usenet
Disinfectant 2.0
----------------
John Norstad just released version 2.0 of Disinfectant, his
excellent virus checking and removal program. Disinfectant is
completely free and is available from most online sources. If you
cannot get it online, you may obtain a copy of Disinfectant by
sending a self-addressed stamped envelope and an 800K floppy disk
to John Norstad at the address below. People outside the US should
send an international postal reply coupon instead of US stamps
(available from any post office). Please use sturdy envelopes,
preferably cardboard disk mailers.
Enough of the nonsense, here's the news. Disinfectant 2.0 has been
completely re-designed so that it is a true application instead of
being a modal dialog. It is MultiFinder-aware and can scan and
disinfect disks in the background. We've found it to be completely
unobtrusive, which is pleasant when you are checking a 105
megabyte hard drive. The excellent help section includes complete
descriptions of existing Macintosh viruses and can easily be
printed or saved to a text file. (Disinfectant will even set the
Creator appropriately for any major word processor.) Disinfectant
also boasts several new scanning options and an improved scanning
station feature for those of you who run Macintosh labs.
The final major enhancement of Disinfectant is the protection
INIT, which replaces other protection INITs by detecting and
blocking all known virus attacks. It does not completely supplant
GateKeeper, which can protect your system from as yet unknown
viruses, but the INIT will be updated to deal with new threats as
they appear. Norstad recommends that you use either the
Disinfectant INIT or GateKeeper and GateKeeper Aid or one of the
commercial packages such as SAM, Virex, or Rival. He does not
recommend that anyone use Vaccine any more because of its limited
efficacy against new viruses.
John Norstad says, "the main goal of version 2.0 is to provide a
complete and free solution to the Macintosh virus problem in a
single package (in fact, in a single file). Version 2.0 addresses
all four aspects of the virus problem: detection, repair,
protection, and education." In our opinion, Disinfectant achieves
its goal admirably and John Norstad should be thanked profusely
for the service he has done the Macintosh community. Thank you,
John.
John Norstad
Academic Computing and Network Services
Northwestern University
2129 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208
Bitnet: jln@nuacc
Internet: jln@acns.nwu.edu
CompuServe: 76666,573
AppleLink: A0173
Information from:
John Norstad -- jln@acns.nwu.edu
Mark Anbinder -- mha@memory.UUCP
Claris Absorbed
---------------
Apple spun off Claris in April of 1987 because Apple felt it was a
hardware company, and the only software it wanted to develop was
new system software. Since then Claris has updated the backbone
programs that were first available for the Mac-MacWrite, MacPaint,
and MacDraw-and aggressively acquired other products such as
FileMaker and the Wingz technology. Last week, however, Apple
announced that it was re-absorbing Claris back into Apple. No one
is quite sure what effect the absorption will have on the
Macintosh market, although some third-party developers are
concerned that they will be unable to compete with Claris.
Presumably, Claris would see new Apple technology first and be
able to take advantage of it before third party developers.
Feelings about the re-acquisition at Claris are generally
positive, according to Dennis Cohen of Claris. "As is to be
expected, the engineers like being part of Apple and the "suits"
aren't sure yet." But what are suits ever sure of?
We hope that the closer connections between Apple and Claris lead
to innovative products without suppressing third party innovation.
Our feeling is that Apple now sees (rightly) Microsoft as its main
competitor and cannot compete with hardware alone. In some
respects, the Apple hardware is nothing special-it's the software
that makes a Mac a Mac. If Apple has finally realized the
importance of pushing their vision of Macintosh software along
with their hardware, the re-acquisition of Claris makes perfect
sense. After all, Apple owned over 80% of Claris, and Claris is
one of the leading Mac software developers with some cutting-edge
technology (particularly in System 7 applications). Besides, we
would far prefer Apple/Claris-dominated software interfaces to the
er, idiosyncratic interfaces favored by Microsoft.
Information from:
Dennis Cohen -- claris!drc@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Adam C. Engst -- TidBITS editor
News Notebook 1.08
Related articles:
InfoWorld -- 02-Jul-90, Vol. 12, #27, pg. 3
InfoWorld -- 09-Jul-90, Vol. 12, #28, pg. 8
MacWEEK -- 10-Jul-90, Vol. 4 #25, pg. 1
PC WEEK -- 02-Jul-90, Vol. 7 #26, pg. 1
Electronic Frontiersmen
-----------------------
Mitchell D. Kapor and John Perry Barlow have established a
foundation, called the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), to
address social and legal issues arising from an increasing use of
electronic forms of communication. The EFF's mission is to
civilize the electronic frontier by educating people in electronic
communications, advising policy makers and the public on First
Amendment matters being applied to telecommunications, and
encouraging the creation of tools that make electronic forms of
communications accessible to people other than the technical
elite.
The initial funding for the EFF came from Kapor and Steve Wozniak,
cofounder of Apple Computer. The EFF's first actions have been to
award a grant to the Computer Professionals for Social
Responsibility (CPSR). The grant will be used by CPSR to expand
the scope of its on-going Computing and Civil Liberties Project.
Other current EFF projects include legal intervention on the part
of Steve Jackson, a game manufacturer whose computer equipment was
seized in the Secret Service's Operation Sun Devil, and
intervention in the case of Craig Neidorf, a University of
Missouri student who is the editor of the electronic newsletter
Phrack World News.
The founding of the EFF is ironic in the face of news that Lotus
Corporation recently won its suit against Paperback Software for
interface infringement and is proceeding to bring charges against
Borland International and the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO). Perhaps
the EFF will help defend against Lotus, although it seems that the
EFF is aiming more to help individuals and small organizations who
cannot adequately defend themselves. Kapor, who left the
management of Lotus some time ago, has already said that he does
not approve of the Paperback Software decision and opposes Lotus's
decision to sue Borland and SCO.
The founding of the EFF seems to us to be a good step in the right
direction because so much public policy relating to computers and
telecommunications has been misguided due to lawmakers being
unaware of the surrounding issues. If you feel strongly about this
or just want more information, write or call the EFF and tell them
you approve (or disapprove, as the case may be, although we hope
not). Just mention where you read about the EFF as they may be
interested in the sort of thing we are doing with TidBITS as well.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
One Cambridge Center, Suite 300
Cambridge, MA 02142
617/577-1385 -- fax 617/225-2347
eff@well.sf.ca.us
Information from:
Geoff Goodfellow -- geoff@fernwood.mpk.ca.us
Major -- major@pta.oz.au
Tom Rombouts -- tomr@ashtate
Mike Godwin -- mnemonic@walt.cc.utexas.edu
Milan -- mms00786@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Related articles:
InfoWorld -- 09-Jul-90, Vol. 12 #28, pg. 1
MacWEEK -- 10-Jul-90, Vol. 4 #25, pg. 113
New Apple Magic
---------------
It often seems that some of the magic has gone out of Apple in the
last few years, what with the new machines offering few innovative
features and the managerial musical chairs. Some have blamed John
Sculley for this-by ousting Steve Jobs, they feel, he removed
Apple's lifeblood. However, Jobs was not the only creative genius
at Apple, and several of the others have just formed a new company
funded in part by Apple. Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, and Marc
Porat founded General Magic Inc. with Apple as a minority investor
and the new company's largest corporate shareholder. Perhaps in
return for the investment, Apple has the first non-exclusive
license to manufacture and market General Magic's technologies and
products. Another tie to Apple will be Apple CEO John Sculley's
presence on General Magic's board of directors.
The company's first order of business will be to design and
develop a new class of "Personal Intelligent Communicator"
products. The sort of project General Magic will work on is the
sort of thing that Apple doesn't wish to concentrate its own
resources on, although there will certainly be give and take
between the two. We at TidBITS are particularly interested in
forms of electronic information exchange and are looking forward
to seeing what General Magic will develop. Who knows, perhaps
General Magic will come up with some tools for manipulating and
archiving text, tools that will be similar to those available in
the next version of TidBITS.
Apple Computer Inc. -- 408/974-2202
Information from:
David Fry -- fry@brauer.harvard.edu
Christopher Escher -- Apple Computer
The fx Terminator
-----------------
Apple's new SCSI terminators for the Mac IIfx have bewildered a
number of new owners who have attempted to daisy chain SCSI
devices from their machines. The new terminators work with the
IIfx's new SCSI DMA controller to provide high speed data transfer
between SCSI devices and the 68030 chip. Only A/UX takes advantage
of this controller now, though future versions of the MacOS and
future, faster SCSI devices (up to 3 megabytes per second) will
use the controller to increase the data transfer speed of the
IIfx.
For those of you unfamiliar with SCSI chain theory, one terminator
must be located before the first device and one must be located
directly before or directly after the last device. Most Macintosh
manuals provide illustrations of SCSI chains, although at least
one person on Usenet was unable to find a helpful discussion of
SCSI termination for the IIfx in his manuals. There are an unknown
number of exceptions to the rules (possibly caused by an
incomplete SCSI standard or by manufacturers' lack of compliance),
so be prepared to experiment when putting together a long SCSI
chain. A good stiff drink probably wouldn't hurt either.
The terminator for the first end of the IIfx chain is inside the
Mac. The terminator (50-pin) for the end of the chain comes loose
in the IIfx box (and must be used at the cost of an incredible
speed drain or possibly damaging your computer. IIfx owners having
SCSI devices with internal terminators must remove the them. Easy
so far, eh? But what happens when you already have an Ehman
Syquest drive that sports a 25-pin SCSI connector similar to the
ones on the back of the Mac? We have heard two suggestions from
different sources. Shane at Ehman suggested sandwiching the
terminator between 25-to-50-pin cables to place the termination
directly before the last device. Alternately, a LaCie rep
suggested attaching a 25-to-50-pin cable to the open port of the
last SCSI device and letting the terminator hang off the cable at
the 50-pin end. Evidently Ehman will be switching to standard
50-pin connectors soon.
And then there's the question about moving drives between IIfx's
and older Macs. I asked the folks on AppleLink about this and was
assured that IIfx terminators can be used on older Macs. Good
thing. We're looking forward to SCSI-2 because it will be a more
rigorous standard and should help to eliminate these troubles.
Information from:
Tonya Byard -- TidBITS editor
Martin Minow -- minow@mountn.dec.com
Bolo -- rob@uokmax.uucp
Mat Davis -- davism@creatures.cs.vt.edu
Steve Baumgarten -- baumgart@esquire.dpw.com
Brian Bechtel -- blob@Apple.COM
Dave Platt -- dplatt@coherent.com
Alex Pournelle -- ...elroy!grian!alex
Related articles:
MacUser -- Aug-90, pg. 243
Reviews/09-Jul-90
-----------------
* MacWEEK
Low Cost Color Graphics Cards, pg. 62
Apple Display Card 8*24
RasterOps ColorBoard 264
SuperMac Color Card/24
Anti-virus Programs, pg. 62
SAM 2.02
Rival 1.1
MacDraft 2.0, pg. 70
Marco Polo, pg. 70
Plus 2.0, pg. 70
VideoPaint, pg. 70
Compression Utilities, pg. 72
DiskDoubler
StuffIt 1.5.1
Diamond
Spyglass, pg. 72
RAM Enhancers, pg. 80
Maxima 1.0.5
Virtual 2.0.2
Inside Information, pg. 80
MacInUse 3.0, pg. 82
* InfoWorld
Now Utilities, pg. 62
ToolBook, pg. 63 (not Mac-specific)
References:
MacWEEK -- 10-Jul-90, Vol. 4 #25
InfoWorld -- 09-Jul-90, Vol. 12 #28
..
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